Michiana included in voter registration fraud investigation

The Indiana State Police investigation into the alleged filing of fraudulent voter registration applications has expanded to 56 counties, including several in Michiana.

The ISP began their investigation in late August. The initial investigation started with two counties. It expanded to nine, then 56.

Because the voter registration deadline is October 11, the ISP wanted to alert voters to verify their voter registration information to prevent them from having to cast a provisional ballot.

Capt. David Bursten with the ISP says it's extremely important to verify your voter information. You can check the accuracy of your voter registration information by logging on to https://indianavoters.in.gov.

You can also contact the Secretary of State from 8:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. EST, Monday through Friday, by calling 866-461-8683.

If you discover you are a victim of fraud, contact the 24 hour Indiana State Police Voter Registration Application Fraud tip line of 888-603-3147.

The investigation includes the following Michiana counties:

Elkhart

Fulton

Kosciusko

La Grange

La Porte

Marshall

Craig Varoga is the President of the Patriot Majority PAC, the organization that spearheads the Indiana Voter Registration Project. This project is responsible for the 45,000 voter registration cards being investigated for fraud and forgery.

Varoga says he does not believe they did anything wrong. "We have various...we have numerous quality control things to prevent any kind of misconduct or any kind of mistakes. We have those things in place."

But ISP's goal is just to make sure that every vote counts and that "no voter, regardless of party..has their chance to vote disenfranchised because people that are submitting voter application cards, are submitting false information," says Capt. Bursten.

Below are a complete list of counties. ISP says that because the investigation is ongoing, they are not able to predict if this list will expand.

Adams

Allen

Bartholomew

Benton

Blackford

Boone

Brown

Carroll

Cass

Clark

Clay

Clinton

Daviess

Dearborn

Decatur

DeKalb

Delaware

Dubois

Elkhart

Fayette

Floyd

Franklin

Fulton

Gibson

Grant

Greene

Hamilton

Hancock

Harrison

Hendricks

Henry

Howard

Huntington

Jackson

Jasper

Jay

Jefferson

Jennings

Johnson

Knox

Kosciusko

LaGrange

Lake

LaPorte

Lawrence

Madison

Marion

Marshall

Martin

Miami

Monroe

Montgomery

Morgan

Newton

Noble

Owen

The possible fraudulent or false information is a combination of made up names and made up addresses, real names with made up or incorrect addresses and false dates of births with real names as well as combinations of all these examples, according to ISP.